korn - see you on the other side
well, when a major puts its all into a release these days, they really pull out all the stops don't they!
if you haven't seen the limited edition version of korns' 7th studio album then you haven't seen anything yet. for starters, there is the plastic slipcase that encases the double cd set, printed onto the plastic is part of the nightmarish 'alice in wonderland' styled artwork, that is used throughout the foldout casing. then inside the inner sanctuary, is a pop-up image with more depictions of the distressed lifeless boy that is part of the package. then to add even more weight to the overall doom and gloom aspect, there is an extra 25 minutes of non-album tracks, remixes, cd-rom live videos. oh, and i should mention the 1 years free membership to the korn fanclub. phew. value for money, or last effort desperation ?
but what about the music ?
i should come clear and advise you that i am a happily married father of 2 cracking lads, and this type of "angry for the fuck of it", harder than nails rock doesn't often do much for me, but there are times that even i can enjoy a raging hormonal kickback, and let rip to the noise that is nu-metal. a maligned genre that seems to be struggling with sales in 2005, as other leaders of the much abused style, limp bizcit, have just released a poorly received greatest hits set, and linkin parks mike shinoda has gone off and made a cracking straight up hiphop album as fort minor. which all but leaves korn all on their own in their dark foreboding corner of discontent. ahhh. no wonder jonathan davis is pictured within the pictures book as playing violin on his own ripped out heartstrings - quite literally, nice. and an image that will, i'm sure, warm the spirits of his own wife and 2 kids no end this xmas, should he decide to provide them with this album as a crimbo cracker filler. so despite the fact that jonathan is obviously living the life of a happy dad (read the sleevenotes thank you list), why on earth has this album once again been made without an ounce of joy throughout the 60+ minutes, surely he has progressed from the teenage angst of old, to that of a more adjusted and content man, or, would such a revelation not make for record company friendly sales. as before, with the only other korn album i have, 'untouchables', the overbearing denseness of the noise can often become too much to handle over the course of a whole album.
in bite sized chunks however, there are indeed some wonderfully extreme permutations of angst, noise and suchlike. opening with the highlight, recent single, 'twisted transistor', kicks things off in fine form, and even has something that i find missing with korn, a melody ! but, 'twisted transistor' has such a thing, a few more of these would make the next hour a lot more digestible. as it is, the sound is large and dense, with some subtle studio enhancements as production crew, the matrix, have been involved to add some shine to the darkness across several of the tracks. so, up to about track 5 or 6 i find myself really getting into the dense, modern rock that they have crafted. despite the appearance of the god-awful bagpipes that opens the stripped down '10 or a 2-way', during which the electronics are a welcome addition and almost add a gary numan sideways glance. 'love song' is not a pil cover version, but a heavy electro industrial monster that opens with declarations of maternal pain and does little to ease the feelings of discomfort, thankfully, the sonics are more varied than most of the album, making the subject matter more bearable.
and so the album continues on : bass lines rumble, drums hold their place amongst the studio tweaks, while guitars do their downtempo chugga chugga thing, leaving jonathan to emote his pain and self-torture via his masculine growls, making for a hard going album, but one that will make your stereo sound far better than it is, and is often far far more listenable than i expected, especially on the more electronically fucked up tracks like 'open up', where they deviate from the dense sound that the band excel at, or the 'we will rock you' styled groove of 'coming undone'.
'see you on the other side', could in fact become a surprising grower, which could end up in the playlist a lot more than i ever expected.